Last Updated: 7/3/23

1. On 6/1/23, I received a small order from Tricker. I ordered three each of water hyacinth and water lettuce but I got a few extra small water lettuce (may have broken off of the others). I also got a pickerel rush that I would plant on 6/4/23. I ordered a hard plastic "koi kastle." Well, the one they sent must have been in the corner for a decade because the dust was caked on, and it was cracked at the edges. It's sharp enough to cut up fish so I'll try to put some epoxy over it as some point before I put it in. Considering it was about $50, you'd think it wouldn't be so flimsy, dirty, and damaged. I've never had luck getting stores to "make it better." I've been told all I do is complain (by my family and co-workers) so I just deal with what I get.

2. At 11:16 am on 6/4/23, I did pond chores. The air temperature was 67 degrees F. The 1800 gallon pond was at 70 degrees F, and the 153 gallon pond was at 65 degrees F. I potted up a mostly dead pickerel rush that I had gotten a few days ago. I had kept it in a bucket of water, and all the leaves shriveled up. I put it in a one gallon pot and used Aquatic Planting Media instead of dirt because it hasn't rained in weeks, and the ground is a solid brick. I squirted off all the filter materials, put in additives, and added water.

3. On 6/4/23, my brother helped me get the cover off the 35-year-old pool. The cover (new last fall) had a dozen holes in it, many fist sized from branches from the oak tree falling onto the cover. As such, I couldn't drain the cover so it was full of thousands of gray treefrog tadpoles. We tried to move what we could to a kiddie pool but I think all the debris probably lowered the oxygen enough to kill most of them. If that didn't, then the salt released onto the cover probably did it as a group of raccoons (or maybe the groundhog couple but less likely) had a party on the cover, detaching it for a ten foot section, allowing tadpoles under the cover and saltwater on top. It was five hours of pumping and hours of manual labor getting the cover off. We even found a couple of hellgrammites! I saw only one rat-tailed maggot. In the past, they were the dominant species.

4. On 6/7/23, I was preparing some wet soil samples (found out they came from a river) at work to test for cyanide when I found a live clam! He was about half an inch long and was moving around when I put him in some water. My life at the time was pretty out of control so I just put the clam in my 153 gallon pond when I got home. He probably will not survive long but at least had a chance.

5. At 12:30 pm on 6/11/23, the air temperature was a hot 85 degrees F. The 1800 gallon pond was at 76 degrees F while the 153 gallon pond was at 66 degrees F. It runs cooler because it has a larger ratio of depth to surface area. I squirted off all the filter materials, added additives, and topped off all the ponds with water. Due to the drought, they were pretty low even though I added water to the big pond three days earlier.

6. It was already 75 degrees F outside on 6/18/23 at 10:23 am. The 1800 gallon pond was at 70 degrees F, and the 153 gallon pond was at 65 degrees F. I replaced the big pond's thermometer with a new one since the old one was too covered in algae to read easily. I change the PondMaster filters. I fertilized the two waterlilies in the big pond which have leaves but still no flowers this year. I squirted off all the filter materials including the Matala, bioballs, and lava rock. I changed the intake for the auxiliary pump. Both intakes for the smaller pumps had collapsed but I was still using them because they collapse every week especially when there is spawning which there was again this week.

A few hours later, I noticed that my koi, Riley, was laying on her side and breathing heavily. The other fish seem fine. She is not injured that I can tell and is my largest and fastest koi who was very healthy. It looks like she is not going to survive, and I have no idea why.

7. When I came home from work on 6/19/23, Riley was gone. I removed her. She weighed 15 pounds (used human scale with me holding her). She was 33.5 inches long with tail and 22 inches without tail. The other fish seem fine so I have no idea why she died suddenly. I did not cut her open to verify that she was a female with eggs so Riley might have been male as well.

8. On 6/25/23, I did pond chores at 12:55 pm when the air temperature was at 82 degrees F with 100% humidity. The 1800 gallon pond was at 76 degrees F, and the 153 gallon pond was at 72 degrees F.

One of the first things that I do is squirt out the PondMaster filters. When I plugged it back in, nothing! I thought the outlet was dead and went and got an extension cord and cord protector, ran it from the porch to the pond, and nothing! The pump was dead. I went inside and couldn't find my new backup pump that I keep on hand! I found one with a note that the faceplate was cracked but it should work otherwise so I had to change faceplates which required moving a lot of screws that were hard to move. Meanwhile, the tube from the pump to the filter broke off so I had to try to fix that. I decided to test the pump again while the faceplate was off, and I got the impellor moving so all of what I had done for the last 20 minutes was a waste because I got the original pump going again. The only problem was that the water was coming out at maybe a third of its usual strength. Ugghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! I have to order another pump and filter because the tubing is broken.

Now that I was nicely aggitated, I went and squirted off all the other filter materials, put in additives, and added water to the ponds.

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